


While the world is sleeping

by agapi42



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Hackle Summer Trope Challenge, Sleeping Beauty in reverse, Trapped, but that's not the trope for this week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-20 08:21:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15530106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agapi42/pseuds/agapi42
Summary: The Great Wizard ordered the school into immediate lockdown. No-one was to leave or enter the grounds until further notice from the Magic Council.





	While the world is sleeping

It didn’t appear in the newspapers, not any they received. It was too quick for that.

There was no post that morning. It was unusual for it to be late but not unheard of so that wasn’t overly worrying. Only two of the day staff came to work and Ada was unable to contact any of the others, which was significantly more worrying. Then over morning tea in the staff room a message arrived simultaneously on both Ada and Hecate’s maglets, as if the sender wanted to ensure it was seen as soon as possible, heedless of the chain of command. The Great Wizard ordered the school into immediate lockdown. No-one was to leave or enter the grounds until further notice from the Magic Council. Their queries went unanswered.

(Later, Hecate wondered who actually sent that message. Quick, decisive and above all sensible action had hardly been a hallmark of the Council of late. Was it the result of an emergency meeting that appreciated the scale of the crisis or just the initiative of a single member, a snatched opportunity that didn’t (or perhaps couldn’t) ask for permission?)

Other schools confirmed they’d been told the same. Miss Amulet suggested it was a drill. Miss Amethyst thought it an overreaction and that the (unspecified) rumours had been exaggerated but did not respond to their further queries. While the connection at Cackle’s to the witching web had always been difficult, it now refused to work entirely. All they could do was send out the messenger bats to tell the parents and hope they would have answers to their questions by the time they were received.

The girls were informed in their classes. Miss Hardbroom threatened expulsion for any pupil who contravened the order. Miss Bat was hopeful they’d know more tomorrow. There was a special assembly planned for the morning.

It was dusk, the end of a day of roiling disquiet, when they learnt the shape of the world to come. It started with Ada’s mirror chiming.

“Miss Cackle. Hecate. I received your message,” Pippa said.

“Thank you, Miss Pentangle,” Ada said and even in that moment Hecate recognised that this time was not well met and dread settled heavy in her stomach. “What can you tell us?”

Pippa hesitated. “What have you heard?”

“Miss Amethyst believes this to be an overreaction,” Ada offered.

“To what, she didn’t say,” Hecate added.

Pippa visibly steeled herself. “I don’t believe she’s right. There’s some kind of... sleeping sickness going around. I was on a mirror call to a parent and she just slumped over, right in the middle of a sentence. I called the healers straightaway, stayed on the line until they got there. They said they’d seen half a dozen cases. That was yesterday morning.”

Ada drew a breath, audible in the stillness, whether just to process or to ask a question, Hecate never knew; Pippa hurried on.

“The witching web’s not working so I’ve been calling around since we got the message from the Magic Council, trying to find out what’s going on. I can’t, I can’t find anyone. They’re all asleep or just not _there_.”

“Is it fatal?” Ada asked, her voice steady, tightly controlled.

Pippa shook her head. “I don’t know. They looked like they were breathing but I don’t know.”

(Hecate remembers the ice crystallising in her veins and lungs. She remembers clasping Ada’s hand so tightly in hers, the sight of the tears standing in Pippa’s eyes and wondering if she could ever think of Pippa again without bringing this to mind.)

There was a knock on the door. Pippa looked round. “I have to go. Stay safe.”

“Thank you, Miss Pentangle. You too,” Ada said.

Hecate could only nod.

(She remembers the silence, how her hand ached in Ada’s and how she never wanted to let go, as if holding on to something familiar tightly enough for long enough could make it all not true. She remembers how her throat scratched around her first words in this new world.)

“We have to tell the girls.”

Ada shook her head, turned to look at her, biting her lip in an attempt to keep her composure. “In the morning. Please. I want to give them one more night. I would never for a moment wish to keep them from their families but if what Pippa says is true, it’s already too late.” She squeezed her eyes shut for a long moment before opening them again. “Have you noticed that not one of the parents has contacted us? No queries as to why, no expressions of concern. When we evacuated the school at Halloween, we had dozens and that was just in a couple of hours. Eight hours, Hecate, and nothing.”

As if on cue, the phone rang. Ada’s eyes widened in surprise and it took her a couple of seconds to move to answer it. In lieu of her hand, Hecate curled her fingers around Ada’s shoulder.

“Miss Cackle?” The voice from the receiver was clearly audible to Hecate, standing so close by, and easily identified as that of Julie Hubble.

“How good to hear from you,” Ada said sincerely.

“Is it magical then?”

“I’m sorry?”

“We’ve had a dozen brought into the hospital during my shift. Just collapsed in the street. They’re all healthy, vitals are perfect, EEGs show only normal sleep patterns. They just won’t wake up. Same up and down the country apparently. Then I come home to a message that the school is on lockdown by order of your Magic Council. Is it some kind of Sleeping Beauty spell?”

“We’re not sure of the cause.” Magical illnesses were not unheard of, Nature’s revenge aimed specifically against those who harnessed her powers. There was indeed a legendary example of such a spell but that kind of power had died a long time ago. “But I promise we’ll keep the girls safe.”

“I know.” Julie paused. “Can I speak to Mildred? Just to...”

“Of course,” Ada said.

With a flick of her wrist, Hecate sent a spell through the corridors. _Mildred Hubble. Miss Cackle’s office, now._

Mildred knocked on the door a minute and a half later. Ada opened the door with a snap of her fingers and Mildred shuffled into the room.

“Miss Cackle. Miss Hardbroom. I’m really sorry—”

Ada held out the receiver. “Your mother wants to speak to you.”

Mildred’s brow creased. “Mum?” She crossed to take the receiver. Ada gave them privacy with a silencing spell and turned to look up at Hecate.

“She said they were healthy,” Ada whispered, as if saying it too loud might make it untrue, and hope shone in her eyes.

Hecate rubbed her hand along the back of Ada’s chair, having moved from her shoulder when Mildred knocked. “She did.”

She wanted very badly to touch her again. She thought instead of what Mildred Hubble might have been apologising for and what the appropriate punishment might be, caught herself and savoured such sheer normality as Ada might a bite of cheesecake.

Mildred held the receiver back out. Ada ended the silencing spell.

“All done?”

“Yes. Thank you, Miss Cackle.”

“Back to your room then. Lights out in half an hour,” Hecate said and the normality of that was sharper, perhaps a lemon drop.

“Yes, Miss Hardbroom.” Mildred turned back in the door. “Mum’s still there; she wanted to say something else.”

“Thank you, Mildred,” Ada said. Mildred left; Hecate replaced her hand on Ada’s shoulder, her thumb moving back and forth across the wool of her cardigan, repetition and texture and _Ada_ calming and focusing.

“Thank you, Miss Cackle,” Julie said, echoing her daughter. “You will keep in touch?”

“Of course.” Ada paused. “Would you be able to let us know of any changes? In your patients. Any developments.”

“I will,” Julie said slowly. “You’re to do the same, mind.”

“Of course,” Ada said again, and something like the shadow of a smile touched her lips.

 

They didn’t sleep that night. They needed to keep their minds full and busy and even, steadied in the silence they found only between themselves, and there was a lot to do. It might be over in a week. It might not.

Ada frowned over plans of the garden, sketching in new vegetable beds that would hopefully help the school move from largely self-sufficient to entirely so. Her pencil tapped the desk once, twice, and stilled. The pause stretched long enough that Hecate, engaged in finding permanent accommodation for the trapped day staff, looked up in concern.

“Ada?”

Ada shook her head, broke her middle-distance stare. “Sorry, Hecate, I was just...”

She rolled her pencil between her fingers, frowning deeply. Hecate watched, waiting.

“Do you think it’s already here?” The words came out in a rush. “Is all this...” She gestured at their paperwork, her meaning clear: _useless, futile, unnecessary._

Hecate considered her answer. Rushed reassurances would ring hollow. “I think it’s unlikely. While we know nothing about its origins, the rapid spread and onset it’s demonstrated would suggest that we would be seeing symptoms by now if it were.”

And if it were, if they were unknowingly living out their last few hours of consciousness and agency, there was no-one she would rather spend it with. “Given the alternative, we should plan for the best.”

Ada let out a long breath. “You’re right, Hecate.” She laid down her pencil and pulled another piece of parchment out. “Shall we have a look at this?”

Together they drafted a new work rota to compensate for those not present, heads bent close, their murmured discussions seeming only a layer of the enswathing silence.

 

In the morning they tried to call Pippa again. The mirror showed only their own faces. Pippa, Alma, Miss Amulet. No connection. Insufficient magic in the space between.

“Ada... your mother.”

“Schrödinger's Cackle,” Ada said and smiled a sad smile at herself in the mirror. She turned her head to look up at Hecate and shifted her weight to the right, settling slightly against her. “I didn’t want to call her. What are the chances?”

Hecate didn’t answer, didn’t need to, just leant into her. Ada drew her close with an arm around her waist. Their reflections gazed back at them. For a wild moment, Hecate wondered if she could climb inside, find a world the right way round. _And leave Ada alone? Never._ It was this, not the impossibility of the notion, which stopped the train of thought dead. If this was all they had, they would be enough. For each other, as always, but for the girls as well. She twisted her wrist, dressed them in their formal robes and hats, the cloth of their craft reserved for solemn and special occasions.

 

The girls noticed. The chatter amongst them died away as they filed in to assembly, catching sight of the depleted ranks of teaching staff standing upon the stage. Maybe it wasn’t just the robes. Dimity appeared as if carved from granite, the soft drape of her hood only emphasising the uncharacteristically hard lines of her face. Hecate had wished in the past that her lively colleague would be quiet, would be still but seeing her like this, she recanted every occasion. Gwen and Algernon held hands and, as they sat, Gwen drew their joined hands into her lap.

“I know you’re all anxious to learn what’s going on,” Ada began, “and I’m sorry to tell you the current situation will continue until further notice. I don’t know what you might have heard—”

Hecate watched the girls watch Ada. There was no movement, no whispered comments or observations shared between them, each girl absorbing the news in her own way, open-mouthed, frowning, blank. The news was as softened and hopeful as Ada could make it, as if it was only a matter of time before things went back to normal, as if the failure of all external communication was all that stopped good news from reaching them, but she told them the truth: that they were alone.

“I know this must be a great shock to you all and I want you to know that if you have any questions or worries, you can come to any one of us, but also I want you to be able to turn to each other. We are isolated but we have each other. You are part of this team, every one of you, and we will have to work together and be able to rely on each other.”

Ada half-turned and Hecate stepped up beside her. Through the folds of her cloak, in such unimagined circumstances, she placed a hand on the small of Ada’s back.

“Lessons will continue as normal after the morning break. Should this state of affairs persist past the end of term, you will be given further information then.”

Ada left the assembly hastily, sparing Hecate a tremulous smile before hurrying out ahead of the girls. Hecate gazed after her and after the girls, dispersing to the grounds, their common rooms, bedrooms, quiet corners, wherever they wanted to go to process the knowledge that those were the only places they could go. Some walked with their heads bowed, some with arms linked, some with clasped hands.

“Give it a couple of weeks and this’ll all blow over,” she heard one reassure another. How she hoped they would be proven right.

“Mildred Hubble.”

Mildred, one of the last, stopped and looked back. “Yes, Miss Hardbroom?”

Maud and Enid stopped too. Hecate gave them a pointed look and they moved on, no doubt to wait around the next corner.

With the hall empty, Hecate opened her hand towards Mildred, summoning the telephone she’d confiscated Mildred’s first day.

“You should have this back,” she said quietly and watched Mildred’s face as the implications sank in. “Use it sparingly.”

Being from a non-magical family had always been a gap between Mildred and her classmates. The fact that, due to that, she alone had the luxury of a family safe and well might easily cause it to yawn into a chasm.

Mildred nodded. “I will. Thank you, Miss Hardbroom.” She patted her dress, looked up. “I don’t...”

Hecate bit back a sigh. It was a special talent of Mildred’s to present herself as disorganised and ill-prepared, assuming personal responsibility even when it was, as here, the situation’s failing.

With a thought, the phone vanished. “It’s in your room,” she told her. “Don’t keep your friends waiting.”

“Yes, Miss Hardbroom.”

Mildred followed her friends. Hecate transferred to find Ada.

 

She found her in the part of the gardens accessible only to staff, kneeling in front of her favourite rose bushes. Hecate began to smile before she realised what Ada was doing.

She transferred again rather than cross the few feet between them, sank to her knees beside Ada and wrapped her hands around hers, stilling their action.

“No.”

“Hecate, what are you doing?”

Hecate released Ada’s hand, placed hers instead on Ada’s arm.

“Don’t do this. You don’t have to do this.”

“Did you see their faces?” Ada stabbed the soil with her trowel again. “All of them looking at me and I was trying to tell them it would be all be all right and I don’t know that it will be. I’m supposed to keep them safe, I’m supposed to protect them, and I don’t know that I can. We need food, Hecate—”

“We have extensive stores.”

“We can’t rely on that!”

“This is not the place to start.” She held Ada’s arm, firm as her words, drew her attention. “Ada. Needlessly destroying something you love in the service of others will not make things better. We have room yet in these gardens for the functionally useless. You convinced me of that.”

Hecate thought of the rose on Ada’s desk. For years, ever since that desk had been hers, there had been a rose each and every morning. She imagined a future without that spark of beauty, without the way Ada smiled when she saw it, an endless procession of days stretching ahead, dreary and colourless. That was a future she didn’t want to live in.

Reaching over, Hecate carefully selected a bloom, cut it with the flick of a finger and sent it to its place in the arms of the mouse. She met Ada’s eyes and found them full of tears.

“The roses stay.” She’d vanished their hats and cloaks but it was still an awkward embrace with both of them kneeling. Heedless, Hecate bent her head over Ada’s as Ada cried against the fabric of her dress. “They stay, Ada.”

 

* * *

 

 

The weeks before the summer holidays passed too quickly in a blur of routine and research. Fruitless, academic research into what could possibly be the cause of the affliction. They were far too vulnerable, that was the frustration. Any exposure would no doubt see the entire school sink into sleep within hours. They dared not risk it. Without practical work, their research was limited to the point of futility. There was no word other than that from Julie Hubble. Her patients were stable but asleep; the doctors were baffled; the mystery no longer featured on the non-magical news. That was all they knew of the outside. ‘The outside’: a pattern of language that spread rapidly through the school. _Where would be the first place you’d go on the outside?_ The outside, anywhere but here. So quickly did the world shrink.

Hecate was all in favour of continuing lessons over the holiday. It would give the girls less time to dwell, could only help their academic performance and the prospect of unoccupied, trapped teenagers roaming the corridors for eight weeks made her shudder. She was in a minority of one, though.

“I do see your logic, Hecate, and I agree, but I feel the girls need a break from the normal routine.”

The plan announced to the girls was that they would spend one day undertaking necessary work such as tending the gardens or gathering potion ingredients; three days on an academic project of their own choosing and three days however they liked to spend their leisure time.

The teachers devoted much of the time thus freed up to drawing up plans for the former fifth years, developing university-level curricula that could be delivered within the resources available and roles that could be undertaken by those who chose not to continue their lessons.

Such preoccupation with the older girls didn’t stop Hecate for waking one day two weeks into the summer holidays and knowing with absolute certainty that it was Selection Day. It was Sunday. It was always Sunday. A new week for a new start. A new group of ill-adept foolish young girls heralding the decline of the craft, as had the group the year before and the year before that. But not this year. Maybe not next year or the year after that, or that. This was it. Hecate felt panic grip her chest as she allowed herself to comprehend that for the first time. All her grumbling about the decline of the craft and here, all at once, was the shape of its final death and she was helpless to prevent it. All those foolish, frustrating, brave, bright-eyed girls she might have helped shape the future into something tolerable, where were they? Asleep in their beds, at their friend’s house, in hospital?

“Hecate.” Ada sounded far away but all of a sudden her fingers were against Hecate’s arm, skin on skin. “Hecate, count for me.” Her fingers swept up. _One_. Down. _Two_. Up. _Three_. Down. _Four._ Gradually her breathing slowed to match the pattern.

Up. “Fifteen.” Down. “Sixteen.”

When they reached twenty, Ada left her fingers resting against the inside of Hecate’s wrist. Hecate turned her head to look at her, kneeling beside the bed.

“Ada.” She stopped, breathed. “I’m fine, really.”

“Of course you are,” Ada said but her eyes looked less convinced. “Do you want to go to breakfast?”

“Yes. I’ll be ready in a moment.”

“There’s no hurry. Take all the time you need.”

 

The girls didn’t leave after breakfast was over and the plates were cleared. Hecate turned to Ada, frowning. Was she wrong? Was it not Sunday after all? If it was Sunday, the second of the girls' three leisure days, what were they waiting for?

Ada squeezed her hand, smiling. “I’ve arranged a little something. For Selection Day.”

Mildred Hubble stood up. So did Enid Nightshade and Maud Spellbody. The trio made their way to the front of the hall, facing the teachers at their table. Enid swept a dramatic courtly bow. Mildred managed a less impressive but entirely competent bow. Maud, in the middle, bobbed a curtsey.

“Miss Cackle. Miss Hardbroom. Miss Drill. Miss Bat. Mr Rowan-Webb. Today is Selection Day,” Mildred began.

“I missed my Selection Day,” Enid said, “but I hear they’re something special. It didn’t seem fair that everyone had to miss it.”

“Therefore,” Maud said, “this year, there is a different kind of Selection Day.”

“These aren’t our proper projects; they’re not finished yet.” Mildred added quickly. She cleared her throat and raised her voice, resuming what was clearly a planned speech. “But we've all learnt and practised a new spell and, with your permission, we would like to demonstrate them.”

Ada smiled and nodded. “First years first, was it?”

Mildred nodded and Ada waved a hand. The empty table at the back became a potions bench with all the resources needed for the spells they had planned. Half a dozen first years made their way over while the rest formed a queue at the side of the room. Mildred, Maud and Enid returned to their seats and Beatrice Bunch stepped forward.

“First off,” Bea said brightly, “I would like to demonstrate a flare spell that can be used to call for help.”

Hecate flinched. Ada laid a hand on her arm. Of course she'd laid on protection spells, Hecate realised, as Beatrice flung her spell enthusiastically upward and it hit an invisible ceiling some way above their heads. HELP, it spelt out then reformed. OVER HERE, it read above a large downwards-pointing arrow. It changed again to THANK YOU and finally to BEATRICE BUNCH before winking out. Bea beamed at the applause.

It was halfway through the second years’ demonstrations—Mildred Hubble had just successfully brewed a level _five_ potion—that Ada leaned in to speak quietly.

 “The craft is alive, Hecate, and it will thrive. It _is_ thriving. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Hecate took a moment to compose herself. “The standard has been... tolerable,” she allowed, letting her lips turn upwards in a smile while she clasped Ada’s hand tightly beneath the table.

 

* * *

 

 

The first day of term saw the presentation of the girls’ summer projects. It took place outside, where they would normally assemble upon arrival. Miss Bat opened proceedings with the school song. They were in the middle of the second line when the clouds made good their threat. The downpour was sudden and absolute: the song abruptly ended in a chorus of squeals.

The teachers, to a woman, stood unflinching. Hecate raised a sardonic eyebrow even as her robes soaked through and water settled against her skin. It was nothing a drying spell wouldn’t sort in an instant. Gwen pulled her wand from her hair and chivvied the girls to stand straight.

“From the beginning, girls, and _louder_!” She had to raise her voice to be heard above the roar of the rain and the girls did likewise, until it was nothing less than bawling defiance at the sky.

No significant portion of the school collapsed so, all in all, it was a better beginning than last year.

 

At the end of the day, Hecate found Ada on the roof, moved to stand at her side. It was already dark, lights mapping out the town below as the non-magical society went about their business. At most they were mildly baffled or slightly inconvenienced by the complete suspension (that was the most appropriate word, Hecate decided firmly) of a society unknown to them, blissfully immune to that which kept all at Cackle’s confined.

“It doesn’t look far, does it?” Ada said wistfully.

A map of the magical society would have only a handful of lights, show only a scattering of bubbles, strung out and unable to communicate, delicate and beautiful and surviving against the odds.

“I prefer to look there,” Hecate said, inclining her head to indicate a patch of darkness closer to the horizon that marked a magical village, quiet for over three months. Ada turned to look at her quizzically and Hecate met her eyes, not as vivid in the dim moonlight but no less beautiful. “Darkness is never final. It always contains the potential for the dawn. Without one the other is meaningless.”

Ada leant her head against Hecate’s shoulder, gazing out in that direction. Hecate’s arm found its way round Ada’s waist. Together, they stood there as the night thickened.

“You know,” Ada said eventually, and it was bravery or hope or both, “I think we’re going to do really, really well this term.”

Hecate pressed a kiss to her head.

 

* * *

 

 

“Mildred, love, I was hoping you’d call. Just a minute, there’s someone here who wants to talk to you before she leaves.”

“Mum?” Mildred furrowed her brow, listening to her mother move away. There was a distant murmur of voices and someone approached the phone.

“Mildred?”

“Miss Mould!” Mildred dropped the phone in surprise. It clattered to the floor and she scrambled to retrieve it. “How are you? What are you doing there?”

“Surprisingly well, all things considered. It turns out I picked a rather good time to become non-magical, don’t you think? And we’re working on the problem at hand. How are you all keeping?”

“Fine. We’re not sick, Miss Mould. What do you mean, working on the problem?”

“Exactly that. Now, listen, Mildred, we need your help. You’re the only magical community we’re in touch with and we’re going to need resources. We need you to talk to your teachers for us.”

“Do you think you can solve this?” Mildred’s mind momentarily lit with excitement before confusion caught up. “...Just the two of you? I know you and Mum are both really clever but... what are you planning to do?”

“Mildred, have you ever wondered where non-magical girls born to witching families end up?”

“What?” Mildred hadn’t known such people existed. “No.”

“ _Everywhere_.”

 

 


End file.
